Ah, had a lovely time at attending TaGeez's CITO at Founder's Park on Tuesday. By attending a CITO (Cache In Trash Out) over a period of 10 days in September you can earn a special souvenir for your online profile. TaGeez and I like to give back, but we realized we couldn't make any of the weekend events. So we hosted one during the week!
Great turnout and beautiful weather. We had people coming and going so we took two group pictures. For being Farmington Hill's dirtiest park, we found very little to clean up. But we did our part, enjoyed some snacks, had a raffle, and then grabbed the three event caches placed in the park. Fun time had by all!
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
HOSTING A CITO
We are blessed in our area to have CITOcacher. While the rest of us are running around trying to add our names to pristine logs, CITOcacher (Carole) can normally be found wandering behind us picking up trash. She always seems to have a bag in hand, and, if you leave her alone, would be at it for hours. Steve and I have nothing but the highest regard for Carole.
Carole always hosts the best CITO's so when we planned this one, we took several cues from her experience and added a few of our own to the list. Here is our blueprint for the CITO:
- Reach out to your local parks department for permission to host a CITO. Some communities will supply trash pickers (grabbers) and trash bags. Make arrangements for trash pickup after the event. After the event, we sent pictures of the clean-up effort and a thank you to the parks - maybe we'll make it in the community bulletin! Nothing like spreading geocaching good cheer.
- Create an event page on geocaching.com with at least (but more is better) two week's notice. In the write-up, suggest your attendees wear/bring the following: old clothes, boots or wellies, gloves, trash pickers and empty buckets (for glass - kitty litter buckets work great!). Define a clear agenda on the cache page.
- And it pays to advertise. We posted a reminder at the time of event publication (to get on people's calendars) and the day before (in case they forgot) on several local geocaching Facebook groups.
- Borrow a sun shade if you don't have one because CITO's tend to happen in all kinds of weather. Also, use a picnic table or bring a portable table with chairs.
- Supply cold water and snacks. We didn't have any of CITOcacher or SCOOK's baked goods so we made do with chips.
- Bring a logbook and have a place for trackable discovery.
- Don't forget the camera (and tripod, if you have one) for the group pictures! Nothing is more joyous than standing around a pile of trash for posterity.
- Supply trash bags, hand sanitizer, and single-use latex or vinyl gloves. Having a First Aid kit handy is not a bad idea, either.
- After the troops have gathered, outline the areas for clean up and remind attendees when to return for the group photo. If the area is particularly urban (good advice from RATTRAK), make sure to explain how to handle 'Belle Isle flowers' (condoms) and needles. It is generally good to make sure children are paired with an adult.
- [BONUS] Not required, but people generally enjoy a good raffle, too. We raffled off 2 ammo cans (Harbor Freight), one headlamp, one $10 Arch card, and an unactivated trackable.
- [BONUS} We also hid 3 event caches throughout the park (but near parking as we were sure everyone would be tired after working all day and picking up trash at night). Please give your reviewers plenty of time to approve them. After the group pictures, we distributed printouts to all and asunder. Any attendee who found a cache before publication could claim it as part of a group first-to-find (FTF). So much fun watching the roaming band of merrymakers heading off from cache to cache.
This list may vary based on region and country, but you get the gist. Planning is everything. Happy trashing!
